SAO PAULO, BRAZIL — Underscoring its commitment to engage new customers in growing market regions with the most comprehensive training and support programs, HARMAN Professional recently hosted a three-day seminar on Installed System Applications in Sao Paulo, Brazil with an international team of presenters. The event was planned in collaboration with Harman’s Brazil Country Head Rodrigo Kniest and Fernando Guerra, Sales Manager for Installed Sound & Cinema. It served to introduce HARMAN product and technology specialists and invited guest speaker and sound system design expert Vance Breshears of Acoustic Dimensions, along with Harman Brazil’s new Pro Sales & Marketing Director, Sergio Luis Smidt, to the audio design and installation community in Brazil.

According to David Scheirman, Director, Knowledge Resources, HARMAN Professional, the seminar is part of a growing information platform being developed to engage and update system designers, specifying engineers and AV consultants worldwide. The timing and choice of location were set to leverage the considerable interest about HARMAN products from audio and systems integration professionals in the Brazilian market. “Since recently making Brazil’s Selenium Electronica an important part of HARMAN Professional’s global business development and growth strategy, we have become much more deeply engaged with audio professionals in this region. That has led to a strong dialog and exchange of ideas,” Scheirman stated. “Cross pollinating geographic regions with ideas and techniques is always exciting and consistently yields value for everyone involved.”

The Sao Paulo program covered the fundamentals of sound and communications systems design from specification to commissioning. Additionally, it provided deep insights into complex system applications including sports stadia, live-performance venues, hospitality venues such as hotels, bars and dance clubs and communication and paging applications ranging from typical conference and boardroom spaces to large-scale transportation facilities. The seminar featured the latest technologies from AKG, BSS, Crown, dbx, JBL and Soundcraft Studer. Attendees also gained an experiential audio-visual exposure to IDX, HARMAN’s new unified paging and message delivery platform. Simultaneous translation in both the English and Portuguese languages was available for all attendees.

“With a robust economy, and with numerous fixed-venue design and installation opportunities resulting from Brazil’s upcoming global-scale sports and entertainment events on the calendar in the next few years, we are investing in more of the necessary personnel and resources to provide our customers with the knowledge and support they require to be successful in these areas,” commented Rodrigo Kniest. “Having firsthand access to world-class experts and leading-edge tools gives our customers a competitive edge in this growing market for sound and communications systems.”

HARMAN (www.harman.com) designs, manufactures and markets a wide range of audio and infotainment solutions for the automotive, consumer and professional markets – supported by 15 leading brands, including AKG, Harman Kardon, Infinity, JBL, Lexicon and Mark Levinson. The company is admired by audiophiles across multiple generations and supports leading professional entertainers and the venues where they perform. More than 20 million automobiles on the road today are equipped with HARMAN audio and infotainment systems. HARMAN has a workforce of about 13,400 people across the Americas, Europe and Asia, and reported sales of $4.4 billion for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2012.